Thursday, September 12, 2013

We neither seek nor require your approval!

“They won't be satisfied until we affirm their deviant lifestyle.”

We have all seen it. Supposedly, the reason for opposing gay rights is because what we really looking for is
acquiescence. Aside from the ridiculous claims of community mind reading, the argument is illogical per se. More importantly it is fiction. We don't care what so-called "Christians" think about us. It's just another knowingly dishonest talking point from the likes of Tony Perkins or Timmy Wildmon. Here is another one of my personal favorites:
“We cannot entertain the idea of gay rights because they'll call us bigots if we don't entertain the idea of gay rights.” National Organization for Marriage has had their own variety of this since 2008: “We cannot accept gay marriage now because then we will have been bigots before.” I'm not joking. This used to be one of Brian Brown's favorite appeals to the faithful.

Since this matter seems to introduce so much confusion in conservative Christian circles, some clarity is called for. Simple enough:

We are long past asking “pretty please with a cherry on top.” Christian conservatives gave up any right to debate or discuss the matter when they posed nothing but intellectually dishonest arguments. Ten years of marriage equality in parts of the US and they still have the temerity to argue, with no evidence whatsoever, that it will end western civilization as we know it. There are 3 million incoherent words on Witherspoon Institute's blog from would-be Knights Templar to prove my point.

So then the defenders of the faith switched to, or augmented with, another tactic. Apparently, we should not advance marriage equality because that makes it even more unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. “Behold the victims!” Aside from the sheer absurdity of the argument, even if it were true (and it's not because most anti-discrimination laws have nothing to do with marriage) they would be arguing that the reason to oppose marriage equality is because they want to discriminate against gay people. Really?

And they should stop talking about children. Doing so disregards the fact that gay couples are raising hundreds of thousands of kids in this country which brings me to the dishonest arguments supposedly supported by the Regnerus study. Simply put, Regnerus did not study children raised by gay couples. People claim that the study concludes what they want it to conclude irrespective of the fact that it does not.

Finally, on the subject of kids, "Christian" parents should teach their own children a thing or two about respect for others. If that's too much for them then they have the option to home school their brats. This affords them the opportunity to make their kids as stupid as their parents while, at the same time, keeping them away from our kids who just want a decent education that our tax dollars pay for.